Saturday, September 5, 2009

Assassin of Impiltur, Part 1

When WotC released the Assassin preview at GenCon, it was only a matter of minutes before William, one of the players in the weekly Saturday morning D&D game that I DM, stated that he would like to run an Assassin in the new campaign that I was about to start up in the Forgotten Realms. Being the open-minded DM that I aspire to be, I, of course, said “I would love to have an assassin in game!” So William took it upon himself and converted the 11th level Halfling Assassin preview that WotC handed out into a 1st level Changeling Assassin PC named “Kit”. After seeing Kit in action in our weekly Realms game set in Impiltur, I thought that I would write up a review to share with everyone else who might be interested in running a game with Assassin PC’s or playing an Assassin themself.

The Assassin is a Shadow Striker, and the striker's extra damage comes from his class feature, Assassin’s Shroud, an at-will power, that lets the Assassin, as a free action, study his foe in a close burst 10 and attack them with his shroud. Now, if the target already has a shroud on it, the assassin can add an another shroud to it, to a maximum of 4. When the Assassin attacks that target, he can expend all of his shrouds on it or none at all. Moreover, if the Assassin opts to use the shroud, then he will deal 1d6 damage per shroud it placed on the target if the attack hits, and 1d6 per shroud with the subtraction of one shroud if he misses. Therefore, the Assassin can stalk around attacking other foes while building a shroud up on one enemy, and can keep building up to do the maximum of 4 d6 damage. However, if the Assassin uses his shroud on another target or the target marked with shroud dies before the Assassin gets to use them, all other shrouds disappear. Assassin’s Shroud is not a “mark” and does not effect any mark that may be in place on the target.

Special: You can use this power only on your turn and only once per turn.

Effect: You subject the target to your Assassin's Shroud. If any of your shrouds are already on the target, you subject it to an additional shroud up to a maximum of four. The shroud last until you use this power against a different enemy or until the end of the encounter.

Before you make an attack roll against the target you choose to invoke either all your shrouds on it or none of them. If you invoke your shrouds, the attack deals 1d6 damage per shroud, minus one shroud if the attack misses, and all your shrouds then vanish from the target. The damage roll never benefits from bonus damage.